Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Close Quarters (One)















Art: Mark Collins
https://markcollinsfineart.com/


Things were fine in the nest cavity for awhile.
Specifically, when they were still in their eggs.
But baby birds—these being Northern flickers
of the woodpecker family—grow fast and trees
don’t expand to accommodate. “Move over!”
“You move over!” “Where do you think I can
move to, exactly?” They found some respite
when the weather was good, poking their heads
out from the hole in the swaying pine.  But, oh,
how they wanted to learn to fly so that they
could get away from each other.

“Good riddance!”

~

“Are we there yet?!”

Whenever we made trips to visit the grandparents
my sisters and I would be confined for hours in
the back of Bessie, our white Buick station wagon.
Proximity did not make us closer. No. Quite
the opposite. Space was a limited resource worth
fighting for. “Move over!” “You move over!”
“Where do you think I can move to? Mom!”
Although we didn’t choose to be together, we did,
over time, share in a common antidotal strategy:

“I need to pee!”

~

Find yourself an adult living in a metropolitan
environment and you’ll find yourself using public
transportation. Metro. Bus. It doesn’t matter.
There is a sardine can—that you paid for and rushed
to board—awaiting you and hundreds of strangers
adorned with summer body odor and winter colds.
“Excuse me, could you please move over?” “Huh? No.”
“Where do you think I can move to, exactly?” Ding.
Ding. The door opens wide and it’s every man, woman,
and dragged-by-the-wrist child fleeing, thinking
some form of:

“Oh, thank God for liberty and independence!”

~

It’s not really that funny.
There are seven billion people riding a finite
planet, all of them longing for intimacy.


© 2019/Jamie K. Reaser
From a book collaboration in progress with artist Mark Collins

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Wednesday, July 24, 2019

White Pines



















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser


My little cabin is in what they call a holler. Here, the sun is slower to arrive than on the ridges. I prefer to meet it there rather than wait on the world’s slow turning. Greeting the day is ritual. No, it is more than that, it is ceremony. The trees know this too, and I think also all those shrubs beneath them and the vines that use them to reach up to the heavens. Like me, climbing these mountains.

Often, the deer watch me, branches as masks. Today, it was a young white pine the doe chose. She didn’t know that I knew the fawn was beside her, low in the dry stream bed, but I did. They walked on together and I, alone. What do I make of the rabbits in the grassy meadows? How are there so many, so complacent? Isn’t this fox-certainty, coyote-certainty wonderful in the way that it teaches gratitude for clover and love of a moment?

Back to the white pine. There aren’t many here. Not tall. Not dense. Mostly, they are young and spindly. It’s like the artist had forgotten them and then suddenly said, “Oh, pines! There must be pines.” Then he—or she—fit them into the remaining spaces because they are deserving. Five long needles each, that’s how I know they are white pines. Of course, there are also the memories of buying them—white pines—for the dozen Christmases we were something called a family.

Once—well more than once—I sat with glorious children on a faraway mountain watching the sunset and the stars arrive, confident and twinkling. We counted them in three languages and sang songs that these same stars had taught their ancestors out of necessity. I don’t remember the words, but I remember the laughter and how the night sky was caught up in their eyes. They didn’t know darkness like I know darkness. I prayed they never would.

A walk isn’t finished until the walker has acknowledged at least one great vulnerability and discovered something to be grateful for. I’m not talking about the pines. I am saying that maybe we should be more like artists, rabbits, and our ancestors’ children.


~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author
Published in "Conversations with Mary: Words of Attention and Devotion"
Winner of the Nautilus Book Award gold medal for poetry

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Saturday, July 20, 2019

What's the Vision?



















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser


What’s the vision? What do you want so see?
What happens when there isn’t an answer?
What happens when you’ve lost the trail
and your sense of destiny?

If you don’t like it, that’s fine. I don’t like it either,
some things need to change, but resistance isn’t
an agent, it’s one act. If you stop something from
going there, you need to decide where you want
it to go instead. Where? Where are we going
instead?

Sometimes things need to fall apart. I do sometimes.
It’s the only way to let go and grow. Ask the caterpillars
on the wilting pipevine or the tadpole in the puddle on
the hottest day of the year. Something beckons for
an ending that’s worth all the risks in the world. There’s
another form to be instead.

What’s the vision? What do you want so see?
What happens when there isn’t an answer?
What happens when you’ve lost the trail
and your sense of destiny?

I hear your anger and frustration. I hear the silence
of overwhelm. I hear your pleading for this to stop,
for it to go away. And, that’s okay. No is a worthy
word when its time has justly come. But, yes must
know where and when to arrive and how to map
the way, somewhere.

What’s the vision? What do you want so see?
What happens when there isn’t an answer?
What happens when you’ve lost the trail and
your sense of destiny?

I’ve been listening for an answer, but no one seems
to know that there’s a question. I see you standing
up. I see you sitting down. I see you lying in the way.
Good! And, then? Where are we going? Where are
all of us going? How do we play follow the leader
like this? It’s not the way I remember.

What’s the vision? What do you want so see?
What happens when there isn’t an answer?
What happens when you’ve lost the trail and
your sense of destiny?

What’s the vision? What do you want so see?
What happens when there isn’t an answer?
What happens when you’ve lost the trail and
your sense of destiny?


© 2019/Jamie K. Reaser
From "The Song Book" (a work in progress)

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Saturday, July 13, 2019

A Day Not As Planned



















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

I had planned accordingly, been
willing to commit body and mind
to the long list, but:

At the farmers’ market there
were familiar faces with names
I know, words to exchange
about possibilities and how the
rain has made the eggplant
grow larger than anticipated or
desired. Communing takes time,
especially when hugs are involved
and here they are, most certainly.

There were turtles: two.
One in a puddle in my driveway
with a nasty infection that needed
tending, so I drove him all the way
over the mountain to vets who
understand that all beings are worthy,

And the other spinning on its back
just west of the yellow lines. Though
I stopped, hopeful, there was nothing
left to do but offer prayers and a
ramshackle body to something that
might show up, hungry, in the roadside
shrubbery. It wasn’t joyful, but it
called for time.

And, I had to fix a watch that broke
in the night. Two in two months!
I think the Universe is trying to tell
me something, but what could it
be?

So then, just as I was going to get back
to the list, a friend said, “Come by!”
And, I did, and we sat for a bit
contemplating how every act can be
a perfect act. What an interesting day,
I thought. I’m perfectly accomplishing
nothing.

But, as the light dimmed and the temperature
became more cordial, I thought now, now
I’ll get something done. It was then
that I realized the day had written a poem
and it was going to need some time.


~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author
From "Truth and Beauty: Poems on the Nature of Our Humanity"

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Tuesday, July 9, 2019

A Summer Moment















Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser


Summer resides at the confluence
of rushing to be and utter stillness.
We must bloom. We must rest.
And, at some point, there is
a moment in which blooming
and resting are indistinguishable.
Our lives have summers.


© 2019/Jamie K. Reaser
From "Truth and Beauty" (a work in progress)

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